‘Poor Cow’: the depiction of women in British kitchen sink dramas
Britain has always been known for its gritty social realist dramas, a genre that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Often dubbed as kitchen sink realism, many of these films featured protagonists confined to small, decrepit flats, facing issues like poverty, unemployment, disillusionment, relationship and family troubles, and pregnancy. Before this phenomenon emerged on screen, many kitchen sink dramas began as novels, short stories and plays, several of which were associated with an unofficial group of writers known as ‘angry young men,’ who wrote tales of working-class strife centring around frustrated male protagonists.
Examples include Look Back in Anger, a play by John Osbourne, and Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, both of which were transformed into films. But what about the angry young women? Female-centric kitchen sink dramas emerged sporadically over the course of the ‘60s, spearheaded by A Taste of Honey, highlighting the need for working-class British women’s struggles to be depicted, too. There was certainly a larger amount of kitchen sink dramas predominantly focused on men and their dilemmas, as exemplified by films like Alfie, Kes, Billy Liar, The Leather Boys, This Sporting Life, and Bronco Bullfrog, but the movement made some rather important contributions to British feminist cinema as well – even if it was just through a handful of films.
Written as a play by Shelagh Delaney, A Taste of Honey was transformed into a film in 1961, with newcomer Rita Tushingham playing the leading role of Jo. Shot in splendid black-and-white, the film often uses close-ups of Tushingham’s face to add a layer of intimacy between the audience and her character. We feel for her as she deals with a complicated living situation which sees her forced into a dingy flat with her mother, a rather brash and complex woman with a penchant for alcohol and younger men. Lonely and aimless, Jo soon begins a secret relationship with a black sailor, who gets her pregnant before he sets off for sea.
The play follows Jo as she deals with her impending fate as a single mother, befriends Geoffrey – who has been kicked out of his flat for being gay, and tries to get by with little money. Tushingham is fantastic as Jo, who must put up with her mother’s clear lack of enthusiasm for her daughter, opting to walk about the bleak, industrial streets of Salford instead. A Taste of Honey was a groundbreaking depiction of female coming-of-age, single motherhood, pregnancy, interracial relationships, and homosexuality, with Delaney’s story illuminating the kind of young female character that desperately lacked on-screen representation until this point.
The following year, more diversity and emphasis on women living on the margins came with The L-Shaped Room, which follows a French woman named Jane as she moves to London into a small room, pregnant but single. While doctors and lovers frown upon her decision to have a child without a husband, she is adamant about keeping it, spending her pregnancy getting to know the people who share her new living quarters, such as a gay black man and an older lesbian.
Each character brings their own unique experiences to the house, and the film draws attention to – and champions – the varied personalities and identities that are often marginalised, both by cinema and society. Emphasising the need for community, especially when times are tough, the film isn’t as bleak as others from the era, with Jane escaping the poverty she finds herself in by the end of the story.
Motherhood is the most common theme within female-centric kitchen sink dramas, something that is also explored in Georgy Girl, directed by Silvio Narizzano. While The L-Shaped Room is a more hopeful depiction of women’s struggles during this period, Georgy Girl is a little more ambiguous, although the financial security that Georgy reaches by the end makes her situation a lot less tragic in comparison to Jo’s in A Taste of Honey.
As the latter comes to an end, Jo’s future remains uncertain as Geoffrey leaves and her mother struggles to digest that her grandchild has a black father. The film closes with Jo looking at a sparkler, slowly fizzling, and we’re left to project our optimistic hopes onto the character, praying that it’ll all work out – even though, deep down, we know that it probably won’t. Meanwhile, in Georgy Girl, a baby provides a more solid means of escape and fulfilment, with the protagonist, Georgy, taking sole custody of her friend’s baby, Sara, after she is neglected.
Throughout the film, we see Georgy struggle in love, eventually having an affair with her friend’s boyfriend-turned-husband. Georgy realises her purpose lies in motherhood, even if the child is not biologically hers. Having conducted children’s music lessons at the start of the film, it’s clear she gets joy from being around kids. Thus, she goes as far as marrying her off-putting 50-year-old family friend so that she can have custody of the abandoned child, hoping for a better and more secure life with a baby to look after, even if that means marrying a man several decades her senior.
Not only does the film refreshingly depict the struggles faced by new mothers through the character of Meredith, who quickly finds herself disgusted by her child, but it also demonstrates how women often have to make sacrifices to become comfortable, such as Georgy marrying the rich yet smarmy James. We’re left wondering if Georgy will be happy with James, and the film ends on a note that could easily be interpreted as hopeful to some and hopelessly depressing to others.
Many films from this era made it clear just how hard it was for many working-class mothers to manage childcare, relationships, and a comfortable living situation, as demonstrated by two of Ken Loach’s films from this period: Cathy Come Home (a television play) and Poor Cow. The latter was based on a story written by Nell Dunn (who was also responsible for writing the female-centric Up The Junction) and follows a woman named Joy as she becomes a wife and mother. Joy finds herself single when her husband gets sent to prison, only for her new boyfriend to share the same fate. Exploring themes of domestic abuse, single motherhood, prostitution, promiscuity, and poverty, Poor Cow is a tender yet eye-opening look into the lives that many women have experienced – ones full of uncertainty and a lack of security.
It’s one of the more bleak entries to the kitchen sink movement, with Joy submitting to her husband’s abuse and crooked ways so that she can remain in a somewhat stable living situation with her son. The ending is, in some ways, comparable to Georgy Girl in that both women choose unideal marriages for the sake of a home and a child, but Joy is instead forced to go back to a life she’s already lived – where slaps across the face and a prison of domesticity are part and parcel of her everyday life.
Cathy Come Home, however, is the bleakest slice of social realism you’ll likely ever see. Filmed in a quasi-documentary style, it’s hard to believe that a single person in the film is an actor. Jumping from letdown to letdown, the film follows a young couple as they struggle through homelessness, trying everything from caravans and derelict houses to a female-only shelter. With three babies and no place to call home, Cathy’s morale continues to weaken as everything bad that could happen does.
The final 20 minutes of Loach’s film are likely to make you cry; Carol White’s performance as Cathy, breaking down into angry tears as social services coldly treat her like just another number in the system, is simply heartbreaking. While poverty is difficult no matter your background, it’s movies like Cathy Come Home that communicate the added stress and, oftentimes, abuse that women in these situations face; Loach’s film even touches on racism when a non-white woman in the female shelter is shamed by some of the other women living there.
When we look back at the period when kitchen sink dramas flourished, most depicted angry young white men who expressed their disillusionment and pain – reflecting a period of national post-war trauma, where widespread unemployment and a housing crisis significantly affected the working-class population. Yet, we can thank movies like Cathy Come Home and A Taste of Honey for putting the main focus of their narratives on working-class women and their struggles, which often included single motherhood and homelessness. Writers like Delaney and Dunn were hugely important figures during the era, their stories coming to life on the big screen and highlighting the need for more reform and understanding of the issues facing many British women on a daily basis.
